Sequential Smarts

Throughout middle school – and, yes, high school (yep, I was on the “lower” math track) – factoring was pretty much the bane of my existence. Well, mathematics in general were the bane of my existence, but within the vast and noxious swampy field of mathematics, I always found factoring to be particularly troublesome. I really wish that I’d had something like this around back then to help me:

Factoring with Mr. Yang and Mosley the Alien, a series of five comic lessons by Gene Yang.

Some of you might recognize Gene Yang as one of the culprits behind Eternal Smile and the culprit behind American Born Chinese, which was the first graphic novel to ever be considered as a finalist for the National Book Awards. So yes, the man knows how to make comics. He also knows how to teach math, apparently, as I had no problem following along with his online comic lessons, and I actually ended up learning a lot in the process.

I highly recommend this link to anybody who’s struggling with factoring – or who knows anybody else who’s struggling with factoring. Yang’s comics are easy to understand, fun to read, and a great resource for teachers and students.

Comic Title: The Manga Guide to Statistics

Author: Text and artwork by Shin Takahashi

Format: Trade paperback

Reviewed by: Elena

Math is hard – especially for dumb girls! Thankfully, lovable but socially awkward nerd Mamoru is hired to teach cute-but-moronic young Rui all about statistics… So that Rui can, in turn, impress her father’s extremely handsome (and much, much older) co-worker, who does marketing research for a living. Ouch. If you can get past the migraine-inducing gender stereotypes saturating this educational manga, you will actually learn a lot of very useful math lessons, and relatively painlessly at that. But. That’s a pretty big “if”.

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